Improvements to refining biomass on a large commercial scale would provide numerous benefits. The market for products of biomass refinement is in the billions of dollars per annum. Protein is a dietary requirement, but is insufficiently met by many populations, including in the tropics, an area where biomass can best be grown. Further, replacing grain fed to cattle with digestible fibre will make more corn available for human consumption worldwide. The market for sugars which can be converted into biofuels, chemicals and plastics is in the tens, possibly hundreds of billions of dollars per annum. Refining of biomass into sugars therefore represents a useful application. Given how readily available biomass is, the creation of a large scale commercial biomass refining process could provide a significant energy source worldwide.
To date, a large scale commercial process does not exist that converts the ligno-cellulose components of biomass to sugars. Concentrated acid, high-temperature dilute acid combinations, steam, moderate temperature/neutral pH dry grinding, strong alkali, liquid anhydrous ammonia, high water ratios of lime, conically-shaped rotor-stator tools, laboratory sonicating devices, liquid stream, high-shear, and cavitating devices have been used to attempt to refine biomass commercially. However, none of these processes have been scaled up to refine biomass economically.
The methods available that make use of acid require that the hydrolysis either occurs at high temperatures or uses high concentrations of strong acids which are difficult to remove from the product. Both of these issues lead to high production costs.
There is a demand for a lower energy, thermal-chemical process capable of complete or selective biomass refining with high catalyst recovery which does not requiring enzymes for cellulose hydrolysis or one which enhances enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose, and which can effectively hydrolyze biomass into dry sugar solids without major degradation of sugars.